The English Peasantry and the Enclosure of Common FieldsSlater, Gilbert
History
The English Peasantry and the Enclosure of Common Fields
Slater, Gilbert
Agriculture -- England; Inclosures; Peasants -- England; Village communities -- Great Britain
But it must also be noticed that there is one characteristic feature of
the typical English village community, namely the importance attached
to the right of common pasturage on the fallow field, and in the
other arable fields after harvest, which would probably never have
developed in any part of the country where only a small proportion of
the land was ploughed. There would be too little profit and too much
inconvenience attached to the exercise of the right for it to have a
chance of being established, or if established, of persisting.
Lastly, it seems to me impossible to account for the perfect definition
of the two boundaries between parishes early enclosed, without special
Acts, and parishes enclosed late by special Acts, the one in the
south-east, passing through Suffolk, Essex, and between Surrey and
Kent, and the other in the south-west, passing through Somerset and
Dorset, except on the assumption that the enclosure movement beginning
in these two corners of England, was suddenly checked when it had
reached the limits indicated, by the Tudor series of Depopulation
Acts, and by the Inquisitions and other measures taken to enforce them.
These Acts specially stipulated for the continuance of the ancient
customary methods of tillage. A summary of their provisions which
affect enclosure will be found in Appendix D.
CHAPTER XV.
RUN-RIG AND COMMON FIELD.
It is a familiar fact that the early open field system of agriculture
of Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, known as run-rig or rundale, differed
in some important features from the common field system of England.
The mere fact suggests a series of questions with regard to the
relationships between common field and run-rig; whether, for instance,
the more complex common field system was evolved from the more simple
and primitive run-rig system; or supposing the two not connected,
whether a boundary can be defined on one side of which the early
agriculture was of the English type and on the other of the Celtic
type; and again, if so, which parts of England lie on the Celtic side
of the boundary, and which, if any, of Wales and Scotland lie on the
English side.
Obviously before considering such questions it is necessary to have a
clear grasp of the nature of run-rig, and of the differences between it
and the English system.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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